Great Britain in Tchaikovsky's life and creative work (by materials of the composer's archive)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a globally minded man in the broadest sense. In his life and work different cultures, countries, eras are intertwined and reflected. In this respect it is interesting to follow the British line in the biography of the composer through documentary sources preserved in Tchaikovsky's personal archive in order to try to identify the most complete picture of the British interests of the composer and the scope of his contact with the world of culture of this country. Tchaikovsky's personal acquaintance with the UK is just four visits to the country in 32 years, the first and the second of which are 27 years apart. The future composer, a 21-year-old employee of the Ministry of Justice, first visited the UK in 1861 as a translator of engineer Vasily Pisarev. Tchaikovsky made his other visits to the UK being a world-renowned composer, author of recognized masterpieces, conductor of his own works. The last one took place in June 1893 and was connected with his being awarded the honorary degree (honoris causa) of Doctor of Music of Cambridge University. Tchaikovsky could hear English speech since early childhood, but he mastered it in adulthood. A special theme for Tchaikovsky was British literature, the composer was interested in throughout his life. This found reflection in his works. He has his writings on the plots from Shakespeare and Byron. There were also unrealized plans for operas also based on the British literary sources. These, for example, are "Ivanhoe" by Walter Scott (1872 plan), and the aforementioned (in the source notebook) "Chateau de Chillon" after a poem by Byron and its Russian version - a play by A.F. Fedotov. After the opera "Queen of Spades" Tchaikovsky learned about novelist George Eliot and her works. The library of the composer has a number of her works, some of which he regarded as the future opera plots. Tchaikovsky planned to compose operas "Othello" and "Romeo and Juliet". The library of P.I. Tchaikovsky also has English books on different topics in the areas he was interested in - history, natural science. Here are some aspects of Tchaikovsky's dialogue with the British culture which was an important part of the spiritual world of the composer throughout his life.

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